October 4, 2011

You might have anticipated that Perry would face a firestorm for being associated with the property, but it's Cain whose remarks are drawing the most criticism from the right. At RedState, Erick Erickson concluded, "It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place." Glenn Reynolds remarked that until now, Cain's "big appeal is that he's not just another black race-card-playing politician." Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis called Cain's remarks "a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him."...

[It's not] just because Cain is attacking a fellow Republican, but because he stepped out of the proper role of a black conservative, which is to reassure Republicans that their political problems with race are the inventions of a liberal conspiracy....

And the Democratic template is to reassure Democrats that the Republicans have a race problem. That's what the Washington Post was doing, and that's what Serwer is doing now.

[C]onservatives might rally around Perry's embattled campaign because a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South had the chutzpah to suggest that there was something "insensitive" about a place called "Niggerhead." Meanwhile, Cain, whose stock was rising prior to the controversy, may have harmed his own presidential ambitions with the mere suggestion that a white Republican had been "insensitive" on an issue of race. How's that for postracial?

Just to turn down the heat a notch, I think the problem in what Cain said was a mistake in the facts as he was perhaps surprised by a question about a story that had just appeared in the news. He seems to miss the point that the word was painted over and he seems to think that "Niggerhead" was the official name of the place:

AMANPOUR: ... And it's been -- it's been painted over. But the report raises questions about whether this rock, this stone, with that word on it, was still on display even quite recently in the last several years. What is your reaction to that?

CAIN: My reaction is that is very insensitive.... And since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just basically a case of insensitivity.

AMANPOUR: It was painted over.

CAIN: Yes. It was painted over. But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity.

Cain showed an insufficient concern about accuracy, to the point where Amanpour had to prompt him about the facts. He was helping WaPo propagate its meme about Perry, southerners, and racism. To give him a pass on that because he's "a man with the living memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South" — as Serwer put it — is patronizing. I doubt very much that Herman Cain wants that kind of special treatment. But, of course, it isn't really any kind of caring concern for this man and his painful memories. It's one more application of the template: Republicans have a race problem. Serwer is happy to perform that service. How's that for postracial?

Or is "How's that for postracial?" — Serwer's question, above — a taunt only to be aimed at Republicans? Democrats want to keep playing the race card game, right? Oh, I don't know. I seem to remember a presidential candidate back in 2008 making us feel that we were about to move into the postracial era. Was I only dreaming?

I am surprised the left have not made up stories of Sarah Palin crawling all over that rock...nekid.

And Eric Holder overseeing a program running guns to Mexico that killed Americans and also about 200 Mexican civilians...crickets. And oh yeah, was done for a misconceived political benefit of discrediting gun owners in the United States.

As if liberals don't have a "proper role" for blacks, er Uncle Toms, just ask Clarence Thomas.

BTW - I have a memory of what life was like for black people in the segregated South. I remember segregated rest rooms, whites only restuarants, theaters, etc., sitting at the back of the bus (us kids always liked to sit back there too) and more. I'm sure Rick Perry remembers.

It's insensitive to jump to a conclusion condemning someone without having adequate information and facts.

Cain at least quickly backed off his comment when he was briefed on the context. The lesson for Herman is Wolf Blizter is not his friend. Interviews are a necessary thing in politics, but they can also be a TRAP!

sane_voter, Cain disappointed me with his comments, too, but disappointment is the most I can muster. He has since said that it isn't a big deal and he wants to get back to real issues. I'm more troubled by his comments about Muslims last summer (which he has since backed away from) and his lack of political experience.

Unless you're really on the fence to begin with, I don't see how this kerfuffle causes you to leave either Perry or Cain.

FWIW, I'm probably leaning Romney at this point, but I'm not really committed.

I still don't understand the name. Ni**erhead? What is that even supposed to mean? If it supposed to be an actual racist slur, it really doesn't make sense.

This whole issue is absurd. Obama sat in a church listening to Goddamn AmeriKKKA sermons for 20 years from a preacher whose preferred religion is one that isn't white friendly but Perry is a racist because he hunted on leased land where someone painted a racial epithet on a rock.

And Eric Holder overseeing a program running guns to Mexico that killed Americans and also about 200 Mexican civilians...crickets.

F&F will play out in due course and looks like it might involve some jail time for some folks. I'm not nearly as concerned about that as I am about the fact that Holder Justice Dept has been racially radicalized. They have an agenda that's fairly transparent and these are the people that are supposed to oversee the elections in 2012. Would you want a supposedly neutral justice department office overseeing elections to have campaign posters on their walls from one of the contenders?

Cain made a blunder as bad as Perry's defense of tuition for illegals. I am surprised that Cain took the bait on racism. That is using the nuclear option just as Perry did regarding immigration calling us heartless.

Those were game-changers for me. Venture into the "red zone" and you pay the price. It was beneath both of them to speak that way.

Republicans have used racism for decades now to win power in the South and elsewhere. They adopted a Southern Strategy that openly employs racism.

Ken Mehlman admitted this: "Following Bush's re-election, Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager and Chairman of the RNC, held several large meetings with African-American business, community, and religious leaders. In his speeches, he apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the past. When asked about the strategy of using race as an issue to build GOP dominance in the once-Democratic South, Mehlman replied, "Republican candidates often have prospered by ignoring black voters and even by exploiting racial tensions," and, "by the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African-American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.""

Ann Althouse, you make a lot of apologies for a lot of immorality. Racism is deeply immoral.

Southern ways were segregation ways. And the N word was the segregationists public declaration of the power to demean black men who were required to know their place at all times and say, Yes Master. It drew the line.

That was what most conservatives in the South wanted to conserve.

Cain's Daddy spent the 1950s Driving Mister Woodruff to the airport and from Atlanta to deepest SW Georgia. So Herman knows the line that the N word establishes, and he is correct to point out that those who do not know that historical fact are "insensitive...(to black's feelings)"

The soft hearted Rick Perry cannot stand being seen as insensitive, unless he needs business contributions.

But Cain taught him a lesson the West Texas white culture never taught him. Having a heart for innocent illegal immigrants is fine, but Perry also should not repeat the GOP habit of writing off the black vote. Cain promises he can take a good part of that vote from Obama.

The Washington Post is situated in a predominantly African American city that is as segregated as Little Rock in the early 1960s. The schools are awful, the African American children are being handed one of the worst educations available in the U.S. Much of the city is unsafe. The Washington Post would do well to examine the deep racist underpinnings of their namesake city which has made less progress in integrating and in providing decent living and educational conditions than nearly any big city that can be named.

Meanwhile, Cain, whose stock was rising prior to the controversy, may have harmed his own presidential ambitions with the mere suggestion that a white Republican had been "insensitive" on an issue of race. How's that for postracial?

The practice of Zen Master Seung Sahn focused on achieving he called "don't know mind".

It is impossible for public figures to practice "don't know mind." Public figures talk, then justify with "backfill mind" and "excuses mind".

Seung Sahn also had a delightful way of confronting his students with paradoxical questions. "Are the mountain and you the same or different? If you say 'the same' I will hit you 30 times. If you say 'different' I will still hit you 30 times."

My son rides public transportation to his school. He says he hears blacks using the word every single day. It is important for him to ride that train because on it he sees the real world. He is 14 and every single school day he is in the real world on the train. He has never heard the word from his mother or me or his sister or his brother. His friends do not use the word. He hears it from blacks every single day.

Well garage? If you actually can draw an equivalency between Obama listening to racist sermons and Perry hunting on property that had a rock someone wrote a bad word on then you're simply not bright enough to ever take seriously.

Which isn't a surprise. You cheerfully voted for a guy whose 'spiritual advisor' preaches Goddamn AmeriKKKA and believes we had 9/11 coming. Well done.

Rick Perry quit going to N-head sometime after he quit working for Albert Gore, Jr. whose father Albert Gore, Sr. voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Rick Perry quit going to N-head when he quit being a racist Democrat. Rick Perry quit going to N-head when he left the party of former KKK member Robert Byrd and joined the party of Lincoln (did you know he founded the GOP?), Taft, Reagan, and Bush.

Have to disagree with Ann when she says, "I think the problem in what Cain said was a mistake in the facts".

As I said yesterday, Herman acquired a new communications director over the weekend and has been attacking his Republican rivals - Santorum and Christie, as well as Perry. It seems the new addition is in the Ed Rollins mold and never heard of Reagan's 11th Commandment.

As I also noted yesterday, Herman might want to make note of the damage Rollins did to the Bachmann campaign.

AlphaLiberal said...

THE WORD NIGGERHEAD IS STILL VISIBLE. It's carved in the rock and they just painted it? they didn't chip out the letter? Why is that you think?

Obviously, they should have used Alpha's head as a jackhammer bit.

They still call the place NIGGERHEAD.

Perry's supposed to go around ORDERING people not to call it that, of course.

"I seem to remember a presidential candidate back in 2008 making us feel that we were about to move into the postracial era. Was I only dreaming?"

No one made "us" feel anything of the kind. The degree to which Obama gave anyone any sense of a bright new postracial era is equal to the degree anyone dismissed/ignored/was ignorant of Obama's 20 year membership in Reverend Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ, which leveraged race baiting to fill its pews and coffers. So no, you weren't dreaming. Fantasizing, more likely.

The worst part of drinking the Kool-Aid is surrendering one's God-given critical thinking.

I think Cain identifies as a black man and he has never indicated that he is post-racial or that he has any specific desire to be post-racial.

For instance, Cain has said that he thinks he can get one-third of the black vote. On the basis of what? Tribalism? You got the right skin color? Awesome.

But you might make that calculation. You might say, "If Cain is our nominee, that takes race off the table and we can definitely beat Obama, the affirmative action President."

Cain is inviting you to make that calculation, to think in racial terms. But it's not a nice thought, particularly, and it's certainly not post-racial.

Why is Cain a Republican? Based on his campaign so far, I would say he's concluded that liberals are idiots on economics. He's right. They are.

But we are only just now starting to get his views on race. I am starting to suspect Cain is purple or even blue on affirmative action. His willingness to identify as a black man and advance his candidacy that way suggests he is totally cool with using his skin color to get ahead.

And, to be honest, I suspect a lot of Republicans are happy to have a black Republican in the race. Even though most Republicans do not like affirmative action.

On the other hand, Tea Party people--and Republicans in general--are very, very familiar with the false allegation of racism. And with people who use the false allegation of racism to advance their own agenda. I really think Cain should know this about his own voters.

There is no "proper role" of the black conservative. There's only the proper role of all conservatives. Cain's problem is that he spoke before he thought. He didn't have the facts and just reacted emotionally to the N-word using left-wing race-bating language. That's how left-wing race-baiters act. Conservatives expect more, not just from conservative blacks, but from all conservatives.

Conservatives are treating Perry the same way for his "have a heart" comments in the debate. Cain's being treated the same way. He's not getting special treatment as the black guy.

For the record, Alpha loves his new power to drop an N bomb. He can't even resist the internet shout of all-caps. Oh the freedom to drop an N-bomb as you pat yourself on the back for your racial innocence! By golly, I wish I could drop some N bombs, and use all-caps. What fun!

Which isn't a surprise. You cheerfully voted for a guy whose 'spiritual advisor' preaches Goddamn AmeriKKKA and believes we had 9/11 coming. Well done.

It was a pretty easy choice given the alternative. Did it bother you McCain had a crazy anti-SSeminite preacher, or that Sara Palin had an African witch doctor cast away spells from her? No. Which means you never cared about Rev Wright in the first place.

I would have loved for Cain to post to his campaign website a short open letter titled, 'Apologies to Perry and Lesson Learned.' where Cain apologized for participating in the smear and putting the blame on the media. I'm a Cain supporter and Cain has clearly walked back criticism of Perry but if handled differently he could have turned this into a positive with the Right and Independents while heaping scorn on his actual enemies -- the liberal press.

A.) The ranch is not a 'family ranch'.They lease a portion of the ranch along with a bunch of other people for the purpose of a hunting camp.

This is a common thing in rural areas. Many of the ranches here routinely lease hunting rights to people from other areas.

B.) The ranch is named Throckmorton. Not Niggerhead.

The nickname of Niggerhead was given to a geographic area on the ranch generations ago. Probably over a hundred years ago.

C.) Perry, his father and any of the other leasees can't rename the ranch from Throckmorton to something else because THEY DON'T OWN THE RANCH. They have no control over what other people use as a nickname for geographic features.

This isn't about racism at all, though, it's about insufficient racial *sensitivity.* And I'm willing to take a stand on this: it's not immoral to be insensitive. It may be unvirtuous, uncouth, and impolite. But it is NOT immoral.

Sometimes a word is just a word. The place had a name from a different time. My grandfather still calls Brazil nuts "niggertoes." He's not an immoral person. He's just past the age where he cares much about other peoples' sensitivities. That doesn't make him a racist, either.

Seung Sahn also had a delightful way of confronting his students with paradoxical questions. "Are the mountain and you the same or different? If you say 'the same' I will hit you 30 times. If you say 'different' I will still hit you 30 times."

How was it post racial for Obama to campaign for President with the New Black Panther Party in 2007, have the leader of that group over to the WH on a number of occasions and then dismiss DoJ voter intimidation charges against that group?

"How was it post racial for Obama to campaign for President with the New Black Panther Party in 2007, have the leader of that group over to the WH on a number of occasions and then dismiss DoJ voter intimidation charges against that group?"Any evidence for that Showbiz? I'll make the claim that what you have written is total B.S

This could help Rick. He was facing 'He's not one of us' because of his attitude to Tejanos. Then to turn around and say 'He is OK in this trivial camp matter' may require some cognitive dissonance which might be resolved in his favor. Those who are charging him with racism over the camp matter probably weren't moved to support him over his sympathy for the Tejano children.

A good rule of thumb is to never vote for someone because you assume that he's telling the truth when he says what you want to hear ("post-racial Presidency) and lying when he says things you don't want to hear("bitter clingers").

In other shocking news, Mitt Romney's kids were once seen putting Aunt Jemima syrup on their pancakes.

BTW it's intriguing that Sewer (sic) doesn't use this as an opportunity to mention that Romney's church's official doctrines were racist until late 1978, just a few years before Perry's father painted over the rock on someone else's property.

If this is all they can dig up on Perry, he must be a near-perfect candidate for President...

And Mr. Cain, I like you. You have to be more careful. Businesspeople may use the phrase "swimming with the sharks", but its far more apropos to politics than business.

Fred4Pres - "And Eric Holder overseeing a program running guns to Mexico that killed Americans and also about 200 Mexican civilians...crickets"======================Nice to hear it was the GUNS! that killed the people.If we can only control the GUNS! we end the problem in Mexico and US inner cities.....

If we can only control the GUNS! we end the problem in Mexico and US inner cities.....

Keep dreaming. Gun ownership is up, violent crime is down. Unemployment is up as well, confounding all of the "experts" with the current drop in crime we're seeing. It was always assumed to be the opposite. Likewise, more gun ownership was supposed to make the streets run red as our countryside devolved into the Wild Wild West.

Ann, here is a link to a discussion at to how mainstream that offensive name really is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/03/surprising-things-and-places-in-science-engineering-and-geography-named-niggerhead/#more-48608

No. You were a sucker. Friendly tip: If you ever get an email from a foreign Finance Minister who makes "us" think that "we" are about to move into the post-gotta-work-for-a-living era, just delete it.

cain lost me early on when he stated that the reason he wasn't getting the amount of media coverage he thought he deserved was because he's black. i've had my fill of that sort of talk from the current whitehouse residents.